


Processing Power

by weepingalpacafuneral



Series: Street Smarts [3]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Deadpool - All Media Types, Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Certain characters have been swapped around and molded, He's a good friend goddamnit, Matthew Murdock is emotionally constipated, Minor appearances from Negasonic Teenage Warhead and Yukio, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Natasha Romanov is working through trauma goddamnit, Negasonic bullies Wade. like just a little bit, Peter Parker Has Anxiety, Rated teen and up for language, See notes for specifics!, They're there for a cameo and they're gay, Timeline is a little wonky from MCU, Wade Wilson is getting his shit together, like real bad, like so much it's painful
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:53:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23800393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weepingalpacafuneral/pseuds/weepingalpacafuneral
Summary: “The kid needs a new goddamn mentor because Stark is retiring.”“And the kid does not know that Stark is retiring.  And just a guess here, the kid does not know he was being mentored."“I’m going to have to mentor him, aren’t I?”--Wherein Spiderman needs a mentor, and no one, including Spiderman, is really comfortable with the situation.  Featuring most of New York's vigilante scene and some of the Avengers and other bigger heroes.
Relationships: Matt Murdock & Natasha Romanov, Matt Murdock & Peter Parker, Matt Murdock & Peter Parker & Wade Wilson, Matt Murdock & Wade Wilson, Minor Negasonic Teenage Warhead/Yukio, Natasha Romanov & Wade Wilson, Peter Parker & Natasha Romanov, Peter Parker & Wade Wilson
Series: Street Smarts [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1732114
Comments: 4
Kudos: 70





	Processing Power

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place post Endgame, and instead of dying, Tony's heart condition becomes worse and he retires. This is the only major timeline change. Some characters are closer to their comic counterparts or even amalgamations of different adaptations, but the base of the story and the characters is the MCU.

“Tony, just how old is he?” Nat’s voice was incredulous and Tony was glad that he was not only on bedrest for the foreseeable future, but separated by 5 state lines from the Black Widow.

“He’s 16, I think. He’s a sophomore in high school.”

“Tony, neither of us went to high school.”

“That is true.”

“God, why did you do this?” 

“I honestly have no fucking clue. The kid’s sweet, and he was gonna die if he tried this shit on his own, and my daddy issues were in full swing, and I kinda fucked up, I know that, but-”

“Tony, you are one of the stupidest people I know.”

“That is entirely justified.”

“Talk to him. For god’s sake, he doesn’t even officially know you were mentoring him.” At Tony’s hesitation, she sighed.

“It doesn’t have to be today. You got out of open-heart surgery less than 24 hours ago.”

“Course.” After a beat, he added a sheepish thank you.

“He needs to hear it from you, though.” Tony grimaced and Natasha softened her face, the ghost of a wistful smile barely formed. “I got your back, Tony.” 

Tony smiled at that, a crippled, melancholy thing, and Natasha smiled back with the same grace, of smiles too fragile to leave such a finite conversation. A nurse wandered into his room, and Nat left the video call with a nod.

\--

The rest of them- the Avengers, heroes, whatever name people had decided on- were mostly still at the Compound. It was the base of operations leftover from the Thanos business and it was big enough and clandestine enough to hold everyone who was still milling around. Nat wandered until she found Steve in the apartment that he, Sam, and Bucky had claimed. She entered and sat down at their kitchen table. Steve looked over the shoulder of the couch he was sitting on and put down his book, walking over to sit opposite her.

“What’s wrong?”

“The kid.” 

Steve let out a breathy sigh, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. “Damn.”

Sam wandered in, clearly having smelled emotional turmoil, and sat down with them. He had his therapist face on.

“I don’t need your goddamn counseling, Wilson.”

“I think the fact that you came here to ask for help says otherwise.” Bucky wandered in, wondering why his partners were sitting at a table no one ever used, and sat down as well.

“What are we doing here?” Bucky got three very different answers.

“Making a mistake.” Natasha pinched the bridge of her nose as she spoke as if to alleviate the headache this conversation would cause her.

“Asking for help from trusted allies.” Sam’s therapist face only intensified, and Natasha fucking hated therapist face.

Steve was the last to respond, and he opted for a middle ground response. “Friendship?”

Nat snorted before turning to address Sam.

“The kid needs a new goddamn mentor because Stark is retiring.” 

Sam furrowed his brow. “And the kid does not know that Stark is retiring.” He received a nod. “And just a guess here, the kid does not know he was being mentored.” He received another nod and Bucky whistled.

“This is the kid who threw a ton of concrete at Steve without winding himself?” 

Everyone nodded this time, in almost perfect sync. 

“Damn. That kid’s got no training.”

Nat groaned. “Peter doesn’t know that he was technically being mentored. By Stark.”

Bucky looked at her with wide eyes. “How? Even the Red Room gave you the courtesy of an “official” mentor. The goddamn Russians.” 

“Yeah. That is, the exact problem here. Peter has powers, and some natural talent, but that means shit if he’s actually going to get out there. Even street level will get him injured, and vigilante is a different game, different community.” She looked Steve dead in the eyes and whispered, more to herself than anyone else at the table, “I’m going to have to mentor him, aren’t I?” 

Bucky stood up and patted her on the back. “Kid’s tiny. Might have some good espionage in him. As he left, Sam made his excuses via hand gestures to follow him and make sure he didn’t explode anything, either on accident or on purpose. 

The only one remaining at the table with her, Steve reached across the table and took Nat’s hand. Gently, hesitantly, he told her that she didn’t have to. Smiling the same smile she had to Tony all of fifteen minutes ago, she squeezed his hand and shook her head. She had to. 

Morbidly, she thought, she would be carrying the Red Room with her into a new generation. Even when she had sworn not too, burning it to the ground after Yelena. She shook her head, took a deep breath. No more Widows, she had said. Even if she had to train another Spider.

\--

Sometime after she had talked with Team Captain America, she was the last one left in the Compound. Steve and Co. had found a place in Brooklyn and told her to call if she needed a hand; Bruce had returned to his labs at the Tower quietly and with no great affair; Thor, Valkyrie, and the other Asgardians had gone to find a suitably Northern locale for the new Asgard; Carol had gone to visit her wife before setting off to be a space cop and the Guardians of the Galaxy had gone with her. 

She had finished up giving Pepper a rundown of the Compound that morning, so her duties were officially filled. The last thing she had done before leaving was give Pepper a long hug in the threshold of the main entrance.

She went back to the Tower. Of course she did. All her training to ignore habit and connections couldn’t force her away. So she went to the Tower.

Bruce was the only one there, and he gave her a sad smile from his workbench when she walked into his lab. He turned off the equipment he was working with and walked over to her. They sat in silence until Bruce offered her his hand, and she took it, and they held hands and looked out of the glass walls of the Tower and they listened to the machinery hum and their hearts beat.  
She wanted to cry; Bruce was, quietly as he could, and he wiped his eyes with his sweater covered hands before turning to her.  
“We’ll make it.” His words were hollow and they both knew it, but they sat there anyway, trying to ignore the bones of teams and relationships that had fallen without the flesh and ligaments of effort and time and the want to create such a fragile thing. They were trying, but it is very hard to be peaceful in a graveyard without making peace with the skeletons first.

Bruce left first, and Natasha didn’t follow him. By then the sun had set, and she had had enough melancholy. It was time to reacquaint herself with New York’s street-level scene. And possibly punch people for some much-needed catharsis.

\--

She made her way to Hell’s Kitchen first. The Devil was her oldest and most prominent friend there, and she trusted him, probably more than she should have, but it hadn’t bitten her yet. Nat found him perched on top of a gargoyle, looking for all the world like a Gothic sculpture. He turned around, sniffed at the air.

“Widow?” A deep smirk settled on his face as he rose to face her. “Haven’t seen you in a hot minute. Aliens been treating you well?”

Nat snorted. “Not quite. I’ve missed the streets. So much better than patriotism/friendship/teamwork speeches before goddamn diplomatic battles.”

He smiled sharply. “Neither of us made it far as soldiers. And soldiering is for chumps anyways.”

“Damn right.” Nat shifted her weight forward, leaning against the edge of the roof. They stood in companionable silence for a while before Nat spoke again. “I’m thinking about losing Black Widow.” 

Matt cocked his head at her in surprise. “All together?” 

Nat shook her head. “Just… just the image of it.” 

She had spent so long trying to rid herself, and the world, of Black Widow as an assassin, as a killer, to establish Black Widow as something more, something better. Something like Iron Man, or Captain America, she supposed. Something that she wasn’t, and something that, after trying, she didn’t want to be. 

“I liked being a free agent.”

His face split into a wide smile. “You comin’ back down to the streets?”

“We’ll see.” Natasha tried to hide her grin, but she didn’t need to: the Devil was off like a shot across the roof, so she followed.

\--

Natasha caught up somewhere near the docks. Human trafficking, he had whispered to her. The specific scene that he had brought Nat to was a couple of crying girls backed into a shipping container, some thugs, and a small red and blue figure on the ground.

“Shit.” Nat wasn’t sure whether she or Matt had spoken, but the Devil had already jumped down, drawing the attention of the thugs. She was about to jump down, herd the girls to safety, check on Peter- on Spiderman, but a single gunshot had everyone freeze in place as Deadpool walked out from the shadows of the surrounding shipping containers shaking his head. 

“Red, this was my fucking sting operation.” Still shaking his head, he walked over to the mouth of the container the thugs were focused on and yelled into it. “Negasonic, get the fuck outta there, and those fake tears were pathetic. I thought I taught you better.” At his words, a young woman with violently purple hair cut into a shortish mohawk waltzed out of the shipping container with a much taller, pink-haired girl on her arm.

“Hi Wade!” The pink-haired girl waved cheerfully at Wade as she walked out of the container, looking curiously at Peter’s prone form before gingerly stepping over it.

“Hi Yukio!” Wade waved back just as cheerfully before looking sheepishly at the Spiderman lying on the ground. “Red, is this yours?”

A grumpy “Fuck no” came from Matt, trying to organize his thugs. He eventually gave up and wandered over to where Wade was standing. As he sniffed the prone form, he yelled to Natasha. “I think this one’s yours, Widow.”

Jumping off the shipping container, she glared at Matt, and then at Wade, who leaned over to where Matt was and whispered that she was glaring at him, to which he smirked and said “I know” in response.

“He’s not my fucking kid, and it’s not my goddamn fault his mentor had to fucking retire.”

Wade perked up. “Stark’s out?” He fist-pumped. “Ha, Logan owes me 50 dollars.” Glaring at him again, Natasha shook Peter’s shoulder gently. The eyes on his suit flickered open briefly, but he still didn’t move. Matt shrugged.

“Kid’s still breathing. Heart rate’s high as fuck though. Oh. Shit, your kid’s having a panic attack.”

“Thank you, I can see that.” Nat picked Peter up and leaned him against a shipping container and knelt down next to him.

“Breathe, Spiderman. I’m here. You’re safe. Breathe.”

“Widow- Ms.- Ms. Romanov- he’s… he’s not…” 

“We are going to have this conversation another time. We are going to let Deadpool clean whatever the fuck he’s doing, and we are going to go home, and we are going to have this conversation when we are not in suits and are physically and emotionally stable.” 

Matt whistled. “Damn, Widow. Really got your shit together.” Glaring at him, she stood, helping Peter up. 

Placing her hands on Peter’s shoulders, Nat tried to posture herself the way Clint did when he calmed upset newbie agents. “We’re gonna get you home, and we’re gonna talk about this tomorrow, ok?” Peter nodded slightly, and Nat realized just how tired he was.

\--

After Peter was safely back at his aunt’s house, she doubled back and found Daredevil and Deadpool still at the docks, interrogating thugs. Actually, Daredevil was interrogating thugs, and Deadpool was reminding him not to knock them out again and that “You need conscious people to have talking people.”

Matt noticed her first, unsurprisingly, and he whispered to Wade, ostensibly alerting him of her presence. He waved cheerfully, and she sighed. She knew too many idiots. That was her problem. At least they were sweet idiots, though.

“We need to talk.”

Wade bounded up to her excitedly. “Damn right we need to talk! It’s been forever!”

She shook her head. “About- about the kid.” Wade grew serious and he gestured to Matt, silently asking her if he could listen in. She nodded and called him over.  
“So. Stark is out of the game.” Before either of them could ask, she added, “For good.”, which they both frowned at. 

Picking at his glove, Matt spoke. “Kid’s been doing more street-level stuff.”

The three fell silent for a while.

Wade broke the silence suddenly. “You gonna mentor him?”

Nat grimaced. “Maybe?” She frowned, then grimaced again. Very quietly, she said, “I think I have to.”

Wade turned to her, placing his hand on her shoulder. “I’ll keep an eye on him. He’s a good kid.”

Matt nodded. “We still have your back. We all do.” Grinning, he cocked his head at an angle, picking up on something miles away before continuing. “The streets ‘ve missed you, Widow.” He gave her a curt nod before leaping away.

Wade stared at her for a second before hugging her tightly. “I gotta meet Negasonic and Yukio for frozen yogurt in like, 3 minutes, but you know where to find me. Also if you’re ever free to babysit I would owe you like, 90 more life debts. Ok bye! Negasonic will kill me if I’m late again.” Then he too raced off.

\--

NR: I hate to ask but who or what would I hypothetically be babysitting

WW: Please don’t laugh. But.  
WW: I have a child?

NR: Ok.

WW: And I’m an active part of her life? As her dad? Like I’m not her primary caregiver because duh but sometimes her foster mom is busy with SHIELD stuff and I need a babysitter

NR: This is so much to unpack  
NR: Clint loves kids, though

WW: This is why I love you  
WW: Also you might know her foster mom from SHIELD?  
WW: Preston? Emily Preston?

NR: This is so much to unpack

**Author's Note:**

> Yep, Ellie is here! She will appear at some point, as will other characters mentioned (and some not mentioned!). This is super fun to write, and Natasha really needs more love. Comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated, please don't be afraid to interact! I love hearing feedback and really just any interaction is great!


End file.
